Ex Parte Hackworth

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Dec 20, 2011

09862949 (B.P.A.I. Dec. 20, 2011)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
09/862,949 05/22/2001 Brian M. Hackworth 112056-0012 9748
24267 7590 12/20/2011
CESARI AND MCKENNA, LLP
88 BLACK FALCON AVENUE
BOSTON, MA 02210
EXAMINER
KE, PENG
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2174
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/20/2011 PAPER
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________________

Ex parte BRIAN M. HACKWORTH
____________________

Appeal 2010-005158
Application 09/862,9491
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before SCOTT R. BOALICK, MARC S. HOFF, and CARLA M. KRIVAK,
Administrative Patent Judges.

HOFF, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 The real party in interest is NetApp, Inc.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a Final Rejection of
claims 77-110. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
Appellant’s invention concerns a system and method for enabling one
or more storage volumes and associated devices on one or more storage
appliances to be consolidated into arbitrary groups so that statistical
information related to performance, operational status, and other usage-
based parameters can be provided to interested parties associated with the
group. According to a preferred embodiment, the grouping of volumes is
controlled via a management station that is attached to the network
containing the volumes. The management station includes a graphical user
interface that allows the groups to be organized and displayed. When a
monitor process determines that an event has occurred, the monitor process
notifies an event process that determines whether there are any interested
parties in the event, and if so, how to notify them (by, e.g., e-mail, alarm,
alert, telephone call, page). Spec. 3-4.
Claim 77 is exemplary of the claims on appeal:
77. A method for managing a computer network, comprising:
operating a plurality of servers connected to the network, each server
of the plurality of servers connected to one or more storage devices;
organizing a plurality of volumes across the plurality of servers,
wherein each volume is a logical arrangement of the one or more storage
devices connected to a particular server;
consolidating two or more selected volumes of the plurality of
volumes into a group of volumes using a graphical user interface, wherein at
least two volumes in the group of volumes are located on separate servers of
the plurality of servers;
identifying a party interested in statistical information related to
operation of the group of volumes using the graphical user interface;
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polling all servers within the group of volumes, by a monitoring
process, for statistical information;
combining statistical information from the servers within the group of
volumes in order to provide a statistical information for the group of
volumes;
displaying, on the graphical user interface, the statistical information
for the group of volumes;
comparing the monitored statistical information to a threshold value to
determine whether an event has occurred; and
in response to determining that an event has occurred, notifying the
interested party.
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art in rejecting the
claims on appeal:
Manghirmalani US 5,819,028 Oct. 6, 1998
Chu US 6,346,954 B1 Feb. 12, 2002
York US 6,505,256 B1 Jan. 7, 2003
Welter US 6,633,912 B1 Oct. 14, 2003
De Jong US 7,107,534 B1 Sep. 12, 2006
Claims 77-81, 83, 85, 86, 88-94, 96, 98-104, and 106-109 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over De Jong in
view of Manghirmalani and Chu.
Claims 82, 84, 95, 97, and 110 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over De Jong in view of Manghirmalani,
Chu, and Welter.
Claims 87, 100, and 105 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over De Jong in view of Manghirmalani, Chu, and York.
Throughout this decision, we make reference to the Appeal Brief
(“App. Br.,” filed July 24, 2009), the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed Dec.
17, 2009), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed Oct. 28, 2009) for
their respective details.

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ISSUE
Appellant argues, inter alia, that the Examiner erred in finding that
the combination of De Jong, Manghirmalani, and Chu teaches consolidating
two or more selected volumes into a plurality of volumes using a graphical
user interface, wherein at least two volumes are located on separate servers
(App. Br. 30, 35).
Appellant’s contentions present us with the following issue:
Does the combination of De Jong, Manghirmalani, and Chu teach or
fairly suggest consolidating two or more selected volumes of a plurality of
volumes into a group of volumes using a graphical user interface, wherein at
least two volumes in the group of volumes are located on separate servers of
a plurality of servers?

FINDINGS OF FACT
De Jong
1. De Jong teaches a graphical user interface “for controlling the
storage enclosure” (col. 3, ll. 3-6). The interface enables “a user to easily
modify any of the disk arrays connected to the enterprise network, . . . build
specific RAID array configurations, and be alerted by an event notifier of
when a problem is detected with a particular storage enclosure” (col. 3, ll.
22-27).
2. De Jong teaches that each of the server computer systems 104 may
serve to provide access to groups of users in the enterprise and to share data
stored on those computer systems (or clusters). As is well known, a cluster is
a collection of two or more independent servers that are able to access a
common body of data storage. The server computer systems may have one
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or more storage enclosures 106a through 106g which serve to house a
plurality of hard disk drives (col. 5, ll. 35-44).
Chu
3. Chu teaches a graphic user interface which provides an iconic
representation of the data storage array A in response to user selections (col.
9, ll. 9-11).
4. The graphical depictions of each of the logical drives are cross
sections of each of the physical drives showing the interrelationship of the
logical drives with the physical drives (col. 9, ll. 15-18).
5. To specify each of the logical drives, the user may move one of
multiple graphical bars coincident with either of the boundary bars 112 or
114 to a new position (col. 9, ll. 24-26).
6. A user may “move each sliding bar between logical drives in order
to increase or decrease the size of a logical device” (col. 9, ll. 30-32).
7. Chu illustrates that Array A is part of ServeRAID #1, and contains
a plurality of logical drives and a plurality of physical drives (Fig. 5).

PRINCIPLES OF LAW
Section 103(a) forbids issuance of a patent when “the
differences between the subject matter sought to be patented
and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole
would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to
a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject
matter pertains.”
KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 406 (2007). The question of
obviousness is resolved on the basis of underlying factual determinations
including (1) the scope and content of the prior art, (2) any differences
between the claimed subject matter and the prior art, (3) the level of skill in
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the art, and (4) where in evidence, so-called secondary considerations.
Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17-18 (1966). See also KSR, 550
U.S. at 407 (“While the sequence of these questions might be reordered in
any particular case, the [Graham] factors continue to define the inquiry that
controls.”).

ANALYSIS
Independent claim 77 recites “consolidating two or more selected
volumes of the plurality of volumes into a group of volumes using a
graphical user interface, wherein at least two volumes in the group of
volumes are located on separate servers of the plurality of servers.”
Independent claims 90, 103, and 104 contain analogous limitations.
Appellant defines “volume” as “a cluster of physical storage disks, defining
an overall logical arrangement of storage space” (Spec. 2).
The Examiner first finds that De Jong teaches this limitation at
column 5, lines 15-45 (Ans. 4). This section describes an enterprise network
having a plurality of servers. Each server may share data stored on a
computer system or “cluster” of two or more independent servers. The
servers may have one or more storage enclosures which serve to house a
plurality of hard disk drives (FF 2).
In the Response to Argument section of the Answer, the Examiner
then finds that “[e]ach array in Chu is a group of volumes and Chu allows
[a] user to have multiple arrays,” citing Chu Figure 7, items 106, 108, and
110 (Ans. 15). The Examiner further cites Chu column 3, lines 45-60, as
teaching that each logical drive is a volume (id.).
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We do not find either of the Examiner’s findings to be supported by
the evidence of record. De Jong teaches a storage area network management
and configuration system, including a graphical user interface to be used in
controlling the storage enclosure (FF 1). De Jong, however, does not contain
any teaching of consolidating two or more selected volumes into a group
using a graphical user interface, wherein at least two volumes in the group
are located on separate servers.
Similarly, Chu teaches a user interface for configuring and managing
a multi-drive data storage system. Figure 7 of Chu illustrates that a user may
move graphical bars to increase or decrease the size of logical drives 1, 2, or
3 (FF 3-6). Assuming arguendo that the Examiner correctly interprets each
logical drive of Chu to be a “volume” as Appellant defines the term, Figure
7 depicts data storage array A. Chu’s Figure 5 illustrates that array A is part
of ServeRAID #1, and contains a plurality of logical drives and a plurality of
physical drives (FF 7). Like De Jong, though, Chu also contains no teaching
that two or more volumes, located on separate servers, may be consolidated
into a group of volumes using a graphical user interface.
We have reviewed Manghirmalani, York, and Welter, and find that
these references fail to remedy the deficiencies of De Jong and Chu.
Because none of the applied references teach the “consolidating”
limitation recited in independent claims 77, 90, 103, and 104, we find that
the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 77-110 under § 103. We will not
sustain the Examiner’s rejections.

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CONCLUSION
The combination of De Jong, Manghirmalani, and Chu does not teach
or fairly suggest consolidating two or more selected volumes of the plurality
of volumes into a group of volumes using a graphical user interface, wherein
at least two volumes in the group of volumes are located on separate servers
of the plurality of servers.

ORDER
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 77-110 is reversed.

REVERSED

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